Laptop brick PS for 1875/6 gainclone?

[mc510]

So, I'm noodling over building an 1875/1876 amplifier that I could use to drive bookshelf speakers from my portable mp3 player. I don't need total audiophile quality sound and I don't want the hassle or expense of building a top notch power supply, so I'm wondering if I can use a laptop brick power supply. I've got an +18 VDC, 3 amp brick that I'm considering for the job. My hope would be to build something like the single-voltage reference design so that I don't have to deal with getting -18v.

I suppose if this worked well that I'd find some discussion on the internets, but I don't. Perhaps the brick supply has too much ripple (though 1875/6 claim good ripple rejection)? Or perhaps the brick doesn't have reserve capacity to handle dynamic peaks? Or perhaps my idea of using single-voltage power supply is fraught with problems?

Any advice? Full disclosure: I can wield a soldering iron and follow a schematic, but I don't know anything at all about circuit design.

Thanks!

[odysseybmx414]

maybe you could use two of them. take the positive from one and connect it to the negative on the other. this will be gnd (0V) then the negative would be -18V with reference to the 0v point. and the positive will of course be +18V

[mc510]

yeah, i've seen some commentary online about using bricks to make a dual-voltage power supply. But I'm assuming (dangerous, i know) that the single-voltage circuit in the spec sheet (or some slight variant) is acceptable. If so, how bad of an idea would it be to plan on using my laptop brick as the power supply?